Ontologies

Ontology versioning

An ontology keeps changing as people and the assistant edit it. A version freezes it: an immutable snapshot of the classes, relationships, attributes, binding environments, and bindings exactly as they stood. Use versions to mark milestones, compare against, export, deploy, and fall back to.

In the app: Data Context › Ontologies › your ontology › More › Versions

[screenshot]
The Ontology Versions page with version cards, each showing its number, date, author, notes, and action icons.

Before you start

  • Anyone who can open the ontology can view and export its versions. Exporting is disabled while your organization is in read-only mode.
  • Creating and deploying versions needs write access to the organization.

The versions page

The Ontology Versions page lists versions newest first. Each card shows the version number, when and by whom it was created, your notes, a summary of what changed since the previous version, and where it has been deployed (“Deployed to environment on date”). The icons on a card are View details, export, and deploy.

Back to Ontology returns to the workbench. If there are no versions yet, the page says so and points you at Create Version.

Create a version

  1. Click Create Version.
  2. Kenseme first checks the ontology’s bindings. If they have blocking problems, a Validate bindings dialog lists them instead of the create dialog, with an option to open the bindings workspace. Fix them and try again. A version can’t be changed later, so Kenseme won’t snapshot bindings that wouldn’t hold up.
  3. In the create dialog, check the version number. The dialog shows the latest version and suggests the next one: the revision plus one, or 1.0.0 for the first. Adjust Major, Minor, or Revision if you want; the new number must be higher than the latest.
  4. Optionally add Notes about what changed. Draft with AI writes notes from the ontology’s recent changes; it says “No recent changes to summarize.” if there is nothing to describe.
  5. Click Create Version.

The new version appears at the top of the list.

Tip: Create a version before a large cleanup or a bulk AI change. It gives you a known-good snapshot to compare with or export.

Inspect a past version

Click a version’s number or its View details icon. A Read-only snapshot — viewing vX.Y.Z chip at the top reminds you that nothing here can change.

The page shows who created the version and when, its change summary, and counts of what it holds. Two tabs show the content:

  • Ontology: the model as it was, in the same workbench layout, read-only.
  • Lakehouse Bindings or Database Bindings (or Bindings for an unbound version): each bound item and the table or column it maps to.

All Versions takes you back to the list.

[screenshot]
A version detail page with the read-only chip, the counts, and the Ontology and Bindings tabs.

Export a version

Click the export icon on a version card, or Export on the version’s page. The dialog notes that you are exporting the immutable snapshot, not the live ontology. See Export an ontology.

Deploy a version to Microsoft Fabric

Deploying pushes a chosen version to a Fabric environment.

  • From the list, click the deploy icon (Deploy this version to Fabric) on a card.
  • From the version’s page, pick an environment from the dropdown and click Push to Fabric.

The push button stays disabled until you pick an environment that can take the deploy. If the environment has binding problems, the page tells you how many and asks you to fix them in the bindings workspace first. A banner tracks the deploy while it runs, and finished deploys are stamped on the version card.

Deploy works for lakehouse-bound versions only. A database-bound version shows “Deploy is available for lakehouse-bound versions only.”

For how Kenseme and Fabric stay aligned over time, see Sync an ontology with Microsoft Fabric.

Note: Versions are for reference, export, and deploy. There is no button to roll the live ontology back to a version. To undo recent edits, use More › Recent changes.